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Warmed Up and Ready to Go

An infrared view of the choppy star-making cloud called M17, or the Swan nebula. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Wisc.Full image and caption

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has put its infrared eyes back on the sky to observe the cold and dusty universe. The telescope ran out of liquid coolant on May 15, 2009, after more than five-and-a-half years of observations. Two of its infrared channels are working at full capacity at the observatory's new "warm" temperature of approximately 30 Kelvin (minus 406 degrees Fahrenheit) -- still quite chilly by our Earthly standards.